Fame and Wuthering Heights

‘Whoever it is, they’re a rotten driver,’ said Mrs D, smoothing down the Liberty bedspread and shooing Tish out of the room. Mrs Drummond had come to terms with Tish’s decision to allow Loxley to be ‘invaded’, as she put it, by a swarm of ghastly Americans. She understood the economic rationale. But she didn’t have to like it.

‘Would he drive a hatchback, do you think?’ asked Tish. ‘I’d rather imagined a red Ferrari.’

The doorbell rang. Embarrassed at herself for being so flustered, Tish patted down her flyaway hair and hurried downstairs to answer it.

Standing outside the door, on flagstones that looked as old as the surrounding hills, Dorian gazed up in wonder at the house. It was even better close up than it had been from the end of the drive, and a thousand times better than it had looked in Rainbow’s pictures. It was grander than the Thrushcross Grange of his imagination, with its picture windows and turrets and exquisite, sweeping expanse of oak-dotted parkland but. from a cinematographer’s point of view, it was utter perfection. He couldn’t have asked for a more romantic house, a more English house. As you drove into the garden proper, you crossed a wide, dancing silver river by means of a positively Shakespearean stone bridge (what scenes could I shoot there, I wonder?). Even the yew hedges were a gift: dark and brooding and so thick they must have been planted when the house was built. From the second he saw Loxley, Dorian was in love. Suddenly last night’s row with Chrissie and the frustrations of his journey seemed to melt away, like stubborn pockets of snow in the spring sunshine.

No one had answered the doorbell. He pressed it again, picturing Loxley’s cantankerous elderly owner hobbling to the front door, a curse on her pursed, cat’s-arse lips. Moments later the door flew open. Dorian found himself face to face with a ravishingly pretty girl.

‘Hello,’ the girl smiled. ‘You must be Mr Rasmirez.’

‘That’s right.’ Dorian smiled back. He was glad to see the maids here were not expected to wear uniform. All that stuffy British upper-class posturing made him break out in hives. Indeed, if this girl’s clothes were anything to go by, Loxley Hall’s dress code made California look formal. In her late twenties, slim and petite, with a natural, tomboyish beauty that effortlessly outshone the surgically perfected look of LA girls, she was wearing cut-off jeans and espadrilles, and a faded pink T-shirt with some charity logo on it that reflected the pink of her cheeks and her incredible, wide, palest pink mouth. She wore no make-up, and her wild blonde hair was tied back with what looked suspiciously like a scrunched-up pair of panties. Tendrils kept escaping across her face, so that she was constantly blowing and swatting them away as she spoke.

‘Is Mrs Crewe at home? Letitia Crewe? I’m afraid I’m a little later than I anticipated. I—’

‘I’m Tish Crewe,’ said the girl, cheerfully extending an unmanicured hand.

Dorian was so surprised, he half expected to hear the anvil-like clang of his jaw hitting the floor, in true cartoon style. This girl owns this house? It took a good ten seconds for the WI battleaxe of his imagination to fade to black, and for him to regain the power of speech.

‘Hi,’ he stammered, dropping his battered suitcase and shaking Tish’s hand. ‘I’m Dorian Rasmirez.’

Trish looked at him curiously, and he realized he must have been staring. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You’re not exactly what I expected.’

‘Nor are you,’ said Tish, grinning. ‘I thought you’d be driving a Ferrari.’

Just then, a battered-looking lorry rumbled through the gates, clattering its way over the bridge and pulling up behind Dorian.

‘Hey, boss, sorry we’re late.’ A burly-looking man jumped out of the cab, followed by an exhausted-looking young girl and … wasn’t that Mrs Johns from the village shop? ‘Our sat-nav lost the will to live somewhere north of Manchester.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Dorian. ‘So did mine. Miss Crewe, I’d like you to meet Chuck MacNamee, my crew director.’

Tish extended a hand. As she did so a small human missile appeared out of nowhere in the hallway behind her and flew directly into Dorian’s stomach, winding him and almost knocking him off his feet.

‘Oh my God,’ Tish gasped, ‘I am so sorry! Abel! Apologize to Mr Rasmirez this instant.’

The missile looked up sheepishly. For the second time in as many minutes, Dorian did a double take. Jesus. It’s Heathcliff. The little boy had jet-black hair and wary, watchful blue eyes.

‘Sorry,’ Abel said, a tad unconvincingly given his broad, cheeky smile. ‘I was being Ben Ten and you were the Alien Force.’

‘I do apologize.’ Tish blushed, as the boy spun around and ran off down the hall.

‘That’s quite all right,’ said Dorian. ‘We invading aliens are tougher than we look, you know.’

After Chuck, Deborah and the others had been introduced and driven round to the back of the house to join the rest of the crew, Tish took Dorian inside.

‘Sorry again about my son. He’s been terribly overexcited about all this,’ Tish explained. ‘I think the whole village is, to be honest. Heaven knows how Marjorie Johns managed to hijack your lorry already. Come on in.’

Dorian followed her into the hallway. It was considerably less grand inside than the façade of the house suggested. The floors were of the same, rough-hewn stone, more appropriate to a farmhouse than a stately home, and the staircase, though broad and sweeping, was visibly scratched and its runner stained. Kid-related detritus was everywhere: a three-wheeled scooter propped against an antique chest, a pair of muddy Wellington boots kicked off in a hurry into opposite corners, diecast trains lined up carefully at the foot of the stairs then abandoned for a more interesting game. Dorian thought of Saskia’s neatly ordered playroom at the Schloss. Chrissie had colour-coded every toy to within an inch of its life, no mean feat when everything was in varying shades of pink.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ said Tish, reading his mind.

‘Not at all,’ said Dorian, adding truthfully, ‘you don’t look old enough to have a son.’

‘I feel old enough, believe me.’ Tish rolled her eyes.

‘I noticed his accent,’ said Dorian. ‘Your husband …?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Tish. ‘I’m not married.’ Unbidden, an image of Michel and Fleur skipping down the aisle together hand in hand popped into her mind. She forced it aside.

‘Is he adopted?’

It was a very direct question from a total stranger, but, for some reason, Tish found it didn’t bother her. Something about Dorian’s manner, so respectful and gentle and not at all what she’d expected, put her at ease.

‘He is, yes.’

‘From Romania?’

Tish looked taken aback. ‘I’m impressed you could tell. Most people say he sounds Italian.’

Dorian shrugged. ‘I spend a lot of time in Romania, so I know the accent well.’

‘You’re joking?’ Few Americans outside the charity world had even heard of Romania, let alone spent time there. ‘How come?’

Dorian grimaced. ‘It’s kind of a long story.’

‘Sorry,’ said Tish, misinterpreting his facial expression as boredom. ‘Listen to me, wittering on about nothing when you’ve travelled halfway across the world to get here. Please, follow me. I’ll show you to your room.’

The rest of the afternoon passed in a whirlwind of activity. Tish struggled to get through Abel’s normal routine of weekend homework, supper and bath, while all through the house and grounds strange men and women tramped around with cameras and light meters and sound machines, politely but completely disrupting everything. Occasionally, Rainbow’s apologetic face would pop up at a window, assuring Tish that they were ‘nearly done’ and should be out of her hair ‘momentarily’, only to be distracted by Chuck MacNamee and Deborah Raynham arguing loudly behind her. Meanwhile, Mrs Johns from the village shop was still hanging around as dusk fell, in the hope of bumping into Viorel Hudson or Sabrina Leon, despite being told repeatedly by both Mrs Drummond and the crew that no actors were expected till the following Tuesday. It wasn’t until after Abel was in bed at eight, and Mrs Drummond had finished complaining for the umpteenth time about the house being like ‘Piccadilly Circus’ that Dorian Rasmirez reappeared, having not been seen since lunchtime.

Tish was in the kitchen, reheating yesterday’s kedgeree, when he walked in.

‘Hi there.’

Tish spun around. He’d changed out of the jeans and sweater he’d been wearing earlier into what Tish could only presume was an American’s idea of English country attire: green corduroy trousers, with matching green shirt, waistcoat and sports jacket, all topped off with a green-and-brown tweed flat cap. In one arm he held a Barbour jacket that still had the label attached, and in the other a pair of (green) Hunter wellies. Kermit the Frog goes stalking, thought Tish, stifling the urge to giggle.

‘You wouldn’t have a pair of scissors I could borrow, would you?’ Dorian gestured to the label on his coat. ‘Figured I might need this tomorrow. We’ll be doing test shots up at the farm all day. It’s beautiful up there by the way. You have an amazing property.’

‘Thanks.’ Tish opened a drawer and handed him some kitchen scissors. She contemplated explaining that Loxley wasn’t really her property at all, but then decided that a potted history of Jago’s various self-serving disappearing acts would only confuse things.

Dorian snipped off the tag and slipped the jacket on. ‘How do I look?’

Ridiculous, thought Tish, trying to think of a response she could say out loud. Eventually, she came up with, ‘Warm.’

‘Not really me, huh?’ Dorian smiled sheepishly, taking it off. ‘No offence, but is it supposed to smell like that?’

Tish turned around. ‘Shit!’ She’d forgotten all about the kedgeree on the hob. A mini-mushroom cloud of black, fishy smoke now hovered ominously over the frying pan. Pulling it off the heat with one hand and opening the window with the other, she looked down at the sticky blackened mess. ‘Oh well. Beans on toast, I suppose.’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Dorian. ‘Why don’t I take you to that quaint little public house I saw on my way up here? It’s the least I can do after all your hospitality. The Woodmen or something, I think it was called.’